You are Christopher Phillips, previously just another teenage nerd living in a small English town, and a lot of things have changed in your life since you died.

The weekend is supposed to be your time off. No crises, no work, no need to get up stupidly early in the morning and trudge off to school. And after the week you’ve just had, you could really do with some time to rest and relax.

True, the school year is over now, and you’ve got weeks to go before your exams, so you’ve got quite a lot of free time ahead of you. That still doesn’t excuse someone running into your room while you’re sleeping and jumping on your bed to wake you, though.

“What? Sarah, get off, I’m awake, I’m awake.” You push your little sister off the bed and sit up, grabbing for a T shirt. She bounces to her feet, still bubbling with excitement.

“Chris, come see! We won something in some draw or other and now we get to go to PARIS!” She turns and runs out of the room, practically bouncing down the stairs.

You consider rolling over and going back to sleep, but you probably ought to find out what all the fuss is about, and it’ll take forever to get back to sleep now. It doesn’t take long to make yourself decent and come downstairs. Your little sister is still bouncing around the living room, while your parents are sitting on the sofa quietly talking, with an open letter between them.

“Ah, Chris,” your father says as you come in, “sit down. Apparently we’ve won a prize draw for a holiday. A week in Paris, all expenses paid and a nice bit of spending money. There’s one small issue, though.”

Your mother waves a few pieces of paper, frowning slightly. “They only provide three tickets. We can’t leave Sarah here on her own, obviously, but apart from that, well, we’re not sure. I know you could do with a break from revision, but your father and I could do with a nice holiday too. What do you think?”

>>28677830[]Your parents deserve some time off. You’ll be perfectly fine at home on your own. What could go wrong?[]As much as you’d hate to be missing all your friends for a week, a holiday in Paris does sound amazing. Maybe you could arrange an extra ticket somehow?[]Does Sarah really have to come along? She’s a big girl now, she can survive on her own for a week. It’ll be fine.[]Other

((Archives are located at http://archive.foolz.us/tg/search/subject/monsterhearts%20quest/type/op/order/asc/and also athttp://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html?tags=Monsterhearts%20Quest Last thread: http://archive.foolz.us/tg/thread/28548415/ ))

>>28677855>[]Your parents deserve some time off. You’ll be perfectly fine at home on your own. What could go wrong?I'm curious what would happen if we actually went on holiday to Paris. But we all know that isn't going to happen. We have unresolved plot threads to handle.

>>28677855>[ x ]Your parents deserve some time off. You’ll be perfectly fine at home on your own. What could go wrong?Altough going to Paris sounds interesting and we could probably arrange something (train and hotel fees shouldn't be too much), and who knows what kind of supernatural we'll find there, i'll vote to stay here for the week. Without a family we can move more freely and solve some of our problems.

Am I the only one that's a bit suspicious this could be a trap to get hostages as leverage over us? What sort of drawing gives you 3 tickets? It's either 2 or 4, normally.We should check whether they entered the drawing in the first place

>>28677990>>28678017it in all likelyhood will be. i mean, we are going to invite jill to stay for the week for sure(she lives alone now) and avril is also sure to be there most of the time and miranda will probably join(though jill may feel awkward with her aunt).

>>28678074Not novel, of course, and it doesn't start as an orgy. We'll call it an extended planning meeting, followed by some teambuilding exerciseThe waterdemongirl who's name I forgot, she likes to watch our orgies, anywayIsabellMaybe Cass if we find her

>>28678094>>28678087No, it is a BAD idea. Chris' hungers are knd of addictive. He should be involved only with people he trusts.That being said, we can set up quiet the orgy with the people we trust so there is no need to invite any strangers.

Alternatively, we could sate our hunger for control by tying Avril up and teasing her for the week.I'm pretty sure she would enjoy that as much as we would (and maybe even more, considering the things she's into).

>>28678323“You deserve a holiday, Mum. And Dad works really hard too - I don’t mind spending some time on my own. I’ve got a lot of revision to get done, anyway, I really ought to stay and work...”

Your mother gets up and gives you a hug. “Thank you, my darling. I’m sure you can look after yourself. You’re a grown boy now. Your father already called in to get some time off work, so we need to go sort out packing now.”

Packing? “Wait, when are you leaving for this holiday?”

“Early tomorrow morning, darling. The tickets are time-limited, I’m afraid. We’ll be back next Sunday, though.” She gives you another hug, then steps back and looks seriously at you. “Don’t get into too much trouble while we’re gone. I know what kids are like these days, but I don’t want to come back from a nice holiday to find you’ve had a house party with a hundred people and trashed the house and I’ll need to spend a week clearing it up. Because if I do, you’re spending the whole summer holidays working until you pay us back for the repairs, understand?” The effect is somewhat spoilt by Sarah sliding between the two of you and staring up at you with tiny eyes of concern.

“Are you going to be okay while we’re gone, Chris? I’ll miss you. I’ll try and bring you back a present, okay?”

“Okay, sis,” you say with a grin, ruffling her hair. “I’ll miss you too. Go on, don’t you have some packing to do too?”

“Oh my god, you’re right. What do I wear for Paris!?” She races back upstairs, leaving your parents chuckling at her enthusiasm. Your mother gives you another hug and then heads off with your father to sort out their own packing, leaving you alone in the living room to ponder.

[]This is great. Call up Jill and Avril and arrange for a week-long fun session at your place.[]This is the perfect opportunity. Call up Isabella and Masami and anyone else you like. Arrange parties.[]This is blatantly a trap. Panic.[]Other

>>28678393>she's still kinda waiting for Chris' dick, it's not rape if she consentsShe's repeatedly said that she's not really that interested, and we have a literal killswitch to her soul in her head. How can that be any kind of consent?

>>28678559[x]OtherThis is blatantly a trap. Go back to our room and contact the Man in White; was he able to keep the other Powers off of us, and what about the woman with the stars in her eyes that's already an imminent threat.

>>28678559Arrange a war council. A simple meeting of our so far defined faction, the monster hunters club, Zack, Masami, and our resident spectral social worker. Time to begin planning operation steal the Ice King's crown....after quality time with Jill and Avril.

>>28678559[ x ]This is great. Call up Jill and Avril and arrange for a week-long fun session at your place.We start with them. We can invite bella, masami and louie later if we want. Also a bit of>[]This is blatantly a trap. Panic.Because this really is fishy. Ask parent where they got the tickets from and how.

>>28678559>[]This is blatantly a trap. Panic.It's either someone powerful who wants to meet us without interference or someone childish who still effectively fears the authority of adults. It's too conspicious to be an ambush as it would just set us on edge.

>>28678746Maybe that's what they want? To set us on edge so we start panicing to distranct us from something else.They don't have to be very powerful to get someone sent out of town for a week. I'm pretty sure even Isabella could arrange something like this.

>>28679350Is it a troll? Or someone who actually believes he's right? Because I know we have at least that one player that thinks we should take risky choices all the time because he thinks they'll be entertaining.

>>28679629But Chris has observed, in-character, that more sex with Avril, Miranda, and Jill results in feeding his Hungers and getting him more power. And with the Man pushing him to get more power, it's a valid in-character motivation, and justification.

>>28679702>>28679666>heterosexualMostly...? I think Chris is, right now, more of a "if it's cute, AND it won't try to bite my dick off or tear my throat out or it won't be creepy or bring a lot of problems/baggage, then why NOT fuck it" mindset.

>>28679773I don't about that. I mean, yeah, we got a blowjob from Louie, and we'd probably have done more with him and Masami if we had the time, but we've shown no interest in Ajani, James, Apollo, or Zack.

>>28679821It might be that Chris is in such a mindset right *now* as a consequence of all his previous mistakes. I mean, if I was Chris, I would be extremely hesitant about worsening our situation by nailing someone else.

These are the reasons I think we should have casual sex with Isabella at least once.

Most importantly, her Queen power will give her a constant lock on our person. Combined with the mental link we share, we should have little trouble relying on her as a fail safe if we are ever in major trouble, or kidnapped.

Secondly, we are both going to be living for a very long time. Considering in the last thread we asked the MIW to visit Isabella more often, I think it's important we develop a friendship with her, not a partnership. Fostering warm feelings will help garner her ambition in a direction alongside our own, and considering that we control her life, I doubt she would complain much knowing that we are friends together, and won't end her on a whim.

>>28680763There’s clearly something strange going on here. Your parents won a competition for exactly three tickets to Paris, leaving tomorrow morning? It’s not like they regularly enter things - and don’t you normally get more notice than a day with these things? This is worrying.

You head back to your room, sit down on the bed and focus. The Man in White always seems able to contact you when he needs to - surely you can actively make contact with him.

“Morning, kid. You wanted to talk?”

You think briefly about the holiday, and receive a wry chuckle in return.

“The way I see it, you’ve got much more of a free hand with your parents gone, they’ll be out of danger, being a long way from here, and you don’t have to worry about keeping to a human-looking schedule or pretending to revise. Not bad, huh?”

And if this is a trap set by one of those people he was talking about, or some other enemy of yours, then what?

Another chuckle, and a slightly embarrassed cough. “No trap, I promise. Just a nice weekend in Paris. They could do with the break, right?”

How does... wait. He did this?

“Guilty as charged. Sorted out your dad’s boss so he wouldn’t make a fuss, smoothed things over with your sister’s school, called in a favour with a guy I know who handles luck to sort out the draw itself. They’ll be protected.”

Anyway, you also wanted to ask him if he’d had any luck protecting you from the other Powers and the woman with eyes -

>>28681394You feel a sudden coldness across your mind, and a twisting sensation, and a powerful migraine, all rolled into one. There’s almost a ripping sensation inside your head, and when it fades you find yourself panting for breath.

“Well now. That’s interesting. That’s very interesting indeed. I’m heading over to your world as fast as I can. Might take a few days to get there. You see that woman again, you let me know right away.”

Again? What woman? And what does he mean, again? And ow. Definitely ow. What the hell was that?

“Needed a piece of your memory, kid. I’ll give it back in a second, once I’ve got this binding off it. Anyway. Go, sort out your minions. And keep your eyes open. Not just for her, for anyone acting strange, anyone with weird eyes, anything missing or warped or just defying the laws of nature.”

Like dead people walking, and faeries, and werewolves?

“Oh, no. You’ll know it if you see it. Now, go.”

There’s a distinct silence in your mind as he breaks the connection, and you find yourself looking down at your phone.

[]Call Avril and Jill. Start arranging to have some fun.[]Call Isabella. You need eyes and ears.[]Call Esther and arrange a war council.[]Other/Multiple

>>28681423[X]Tell Isabella and Esther to keep their eyes and ears open for anything strange.Then start arranging >>28678311 with Avril (Maybe say it's a "punishment" for not warning us and Jill about the stag slaughtering we had to do at the feast)

>>28681832yes, but he evades the questions with "you don't need to know yet, just trust me" and since A: he seems to be our not dying force and B; can disconnect at will and we can't force him, its tough chips.

>>28681884Hmmm, in that case I have my own theory as to what he is and why he is so powerful.Magical beings in this world generally get there power (it seems) from contracts and territory.The larger their power base the stronger they are.In the case of the Man In White, I think he's powerful because he's the embodiment of a concept. Close enough to a god. He's the concept of domination and control, so by definition he'd be pretty strong.Only thing I can't work out is what the other thing is, why he's almost afraid of it.

>>28681832>>28681884If you don't already know, then a name wouldn't mean anything to you, and it's quite a complicated concept to explain. This gentleman >>28682026 has something of a grasp on things, but... well. As for our adversaries, they're even more difficult to understand.

This memory, for example. That damnable woman has made the entire thing false - there's no way I could put it back in the boy's head and have it mean anything to him without first making it not false, and that's no easy task. What I can do, however, is transcribe it. You fine ladies and gentlemen don't care if the transcript is totally fictional - it's fictional to you anyway. So, go ahead and enjoy.

>>28682304Oh fun. So she's the concept of Creation. Let me guess, she loves her creations so much she doesn't want us to suffer in this world with pain and suffering? So her plan is to off us all.Shweeet.

>>28682304Concept of Truth? Also note that the Man in White said he'd becomingto our world? I think this is more universal then we thought. Him and the rest are probably immutable forces of the universe that are kind of fighting against each other.

I mean there are conflicting concepts in the universe right? So them having anthromorphic personifications would make a heck of a mess. Also note third Age, perhaps this is the third incarnation of the universe?

>>

The Man In The Tailored White (...)!k8C5uWf90cMonsterhearts Quest 4712/05/13(Thu)20:36 No.28682493

>>28682121First thing first - you've been given a warning from someone who apparently ought to know. Keep your eyes and ears open. Well, you've got more eyes and ears than just your own. You bend your mind inwards again, seeking out your connection to Isabella.

>>28683272Call up Esther, ask her to keep an eye out for star-eyed people or people otherwise acting odd. As payment for this service, we give her the information that whoever is doing this was also the one who had a powerful and subtle enchantment put on Jason, and probably means bad news for all of us.

Also, we never did ask the Man if there are parts of H.P. Lovecraft's Mythos that are real and that we should watch out for. We're well read enough to know that Masami is a Deep One, and that she's connected to the Esoteric Order of Dagon. Is Cthulhu a threat we need to be wary of?

>>28684601((It's 3:30am and I have been struggling to get my internet connection reliably up and running for nearly 5 hours. None of my solutions seem to stick. I'm going to bed, and hopefully it will work again in the morning. If so, I will run another thread TOMORROW, Friday the 6th of December. I'll announce it beforehand if my internet is still fucked tomorrow evening. If so, then the next thread will be Tuesday the 10th.))

>>28697988Clearly, we still need to do that whole "re-dominate Avril" thing...Although, the party has caused me to question her disloyalty and see it more as fear. Jacob DID say it made people more honest and it seemed to do so.

>>28697955"Esther. I need some help from you and your marvellous talent for observation. I can pay in information."

"Hello, Chris. Information for information is not always an exact trade, but I may be able to help. What is it that you possess, and what do you require information on?"

"It's not information I need, or not just information. I need you to watch out for people. People acting strangely or bizarrely, or people with stars in their eyes."

"Stars in their eyes? I see. You wish information on unusual occurrences in the future, and the locations of these people?"

"More or less. Don't get close to them, they're dangerous. The information I've got is that one of them was behind what happened last night, with Jason. She put some sort of enchantment on him, something extremely powerful. This is something that's a big threat to all of us.”

“Interesting. I thank you for the information, Christopher. I shall keep a watch on those sources that I can, and attempt to discern more about this foe. Do you have any information beyond the physical trait of starred eyes?”

“That’s all at the moment. I might have more in a few days - I’ll keep in touch.”

“Appreciated. I will contact you if I find anything.”

You call Miranda and Anne, telling them about your parents’ absence. Anne is a little worried at the thought of you being left all on your own for a week, but you remind her that you can look after yourself fairly well these days. Miranda is just happy for the chance to spend more time with you, Jill and Avril. You leave out the warnings for now - they don’t have the kind of information networks Isabella or Esther do, and you don’t want them putting themselves in harm’s way.

>>28698695That should be everything you need to do for the moment, so you take a nap, waking up just in time for dinner. Your parents are happily chatting about places to visit in Paris, while your sister is running down a list of people to get presents for, to prove she really went to Paris, which seems to cover her entire class. It’s nice to have a few honest moments of regular family life, given all the craziness that’s been going on lately. You just want to relax and enjoy the meal.

No chance of that, of course. That would just be too much good luck.

“Hey, kid. Snap out of it, you’ve got trouble. Something’s changing over on the south side of town, and it doesn’t look good. Get over there and look into it closer.”

[]”I’m having dinner with my family. Can it wait a little while?”[]”Send someone else to look into it. I’m taking the evening off before my parents leave for the week.”[]”All right, all right. I’m going.”[]Other

She tuts a little, but takes your plate. "I'll put this in the fridge for you and re-heat it when you get home."

You say some quick goodbyes and then hurry out, pulling on a coat. It's cold outside, and steadily getting colder as you head south, towards the warehouses and factories where you originally met Ajani. Nothing immediately stands out as different, though. It’s unusually cold for May, actually. You’re fairly sure you would have noticed if it had been this cold yesterday. Isn’t this where you were fighting the Winter King, before? Maybe the trouble has something to do with him. If that’s the case, then Ajani might be interested in helping you out. If he doesn’t just end up doing something ‘heroic’ and reckless, anyway.

[]See if you can get hold of Ajani or Gloria, and get them to come and help out.[]Go searching for this disturbance on your own. No need to get more people involved in this.[]Call in your own backup - Avril, Jill and Isabella. That should be more than enough to handle any trouble without getting Ajani’s crew mixed up in all this.[]Other

>>28699658[x]Go searching for this disturbance on your own. No need to get more people involved in this.We don't know what this threat is, and fewer numbers would be better for a stealthy recon mission to see what's up.We can call in backup once we know what we're up against.

>>28699786>Dont rush into anythingCalling Ajani or Gloria IS asking for them to rush into whatever this is. It said as much in the post.>If he doesn’t just end up doing something ‘heroic’ and reckless, anyway.

>>28700034You don't have Gloria's number, but Ajani should be able to get hold of her. He picks up almost as soon as the phone starts ringing.

"Hello? Who is this?"

"Ajani, it's Chris. I'm down at the warehouse district and it's freezing cold. I can see my breath in the air. I think we might have trouble."

"I see. Where are you, exactly?"

You read off the nearest street signs for him, and hear Ajani talking to someone in the background.

"Right. Stay there, Gloria and I will be right over. See you in five."

True to his word, it's barely five minutes before the two of them come clattering over the rooftops, swords already out. Gloria is back in her white leather jacket, which seems to have no traces of the cuts and punctures it received a few days ago. Maybe it's a new jacket. Ajani's still wearing the complicated red silk jacket he had on last night, although it's open to reveal some more sensible black athletic gear underneath, along with a pair of webbed chest straps that cross in the middle, each bearing a short knife.

"Where to?" he asks as he touches down, scanning the area. "I don't see anything."

"I was hoping you could tell me, really. Didn't you say you'd worked out where the Winter King's base was?"

Ajani frowns. "I hope so, but we'll only know for sure when we get there. Are you armed?"

You shake your head - you didn't have time to stop and grab your dagger before leaving - and he pulls on one of the knives strapped across his chest. The sheath comes away from the strap, and he tosses the whole thing to you. It's got a velcro patch across the back, and while the knife just looks like regular steel, it's still a sharp blade. Some sort of combat knife, probably.

Gloria nods briefly to Ajani, and they head down a nearby alleyway. Fairly soon you're looking at a large warehouse, indistinguishable from any of the others except for the thin cloud of fog surrounding it, and the patches of ice on the ground.

>>28700828[]Go in the front entrance. They probably know you’re here anyway.[]Look for a back door or a window, some angle they won’t be expecting.[]Try to find a way up onto the roof. A skylight is always the best way to enter a building.[]Wait outside and try to call someone out to talk. Maybe you can handle this diplomatically?[]Other

>>28699681((Oh, and in case I wasn't sufficiently clear here:Vervain, gorse, hollyhockPeople with the falling stars in their eyesHeaven and hell: beauty and loveA great primal power that you're only touching a fraction of a piece ofThe beauty behind the lies we tell ourselvesAnd plenty more besides.))

>>28700853Can we not attack their base right now? We do not even have a plan yet. Also The Man said 'something is changing and it doesn't look good' and we all know with his arrogance something he sees as a trouble is something that is more than likely to get us killed. I vote to at least observe and learn what we can before we do anything else.

>>28701417I didn't actually know Nobilis at all well, so it took some research, but I'm going to go with yes. The woman with the stars in her eyes is an Excrucian, who all desire the end of all things. The Man is likely a Power with the Estate of Control or Domination. I'm pretty sure there's some mechanic for when Powers get involved with mortals that probably covers what Chris is, but I don't really remember it and don't want to take forever looking for it.

I'm getting better at this guessing thing. That's two out of four or five.

>>28701709I am not at all familiar with the system but looking through its wiki, it seems to fit pretty well in general. Though we'd need someone who knows it, in order to confirm if those specific given clues fit with it or not.

>>28701417"All right," Ajani says with a nod to Gloria, "are we all ready?"

"Hold on a second," you say, holding up a hand. "We need to scout the place out first, don't we? Do you know what we're up against?"

Ajani and Gloria look at each other and pause for a second. Ajani looks slightly embarrassed.

"I kind of figured we'd find out what we were up against once we got in there, right? You know, burst through the door, see a bunch of husks, beat them up, then fight some stronger things, then find the king... yeah?"

There's a brief pause as you resist the urge to slam your palm against your forehead. "This isn't a video game, Ajani. The enemies aren't going to line up in a nice convenient order of relative power levels and let us practise on the weakest ones until we're ready to take on the boss. If we walk in there without a plan, we're the ones who're in trouble. Let's see if there's a back way in, something they won't be guarding so much."

Ajani looks sheepish and the two of them quietly follow you round the back. There is indeed a back door, although you don't want to try the handle - it looks like there's a thin coating of frost on the metal. A gentle prod on the door with the handle of your knife swings it open.

Gloria frowns. "That... should have been locked, surely?"

Yeah, it should have. You look into the room beyond. Two husks look like they should have been standing guard either side of the door. The thick layer of clear ice surrounding each one seems to be impairing their movements, though. You can see the ice around one arm quivering as the frozen corpse tries to swing its fist at you, but it seems like it's stuck in place.

You step carefully through the door, Ajani following behind. Gloria stops and produces her sword from somewhere, hacking at the frozen husks. It takes several swings to get the head off the first one, and for the second she resorts to igniting her sword, which melts through to the head on the first blow.

>>28702181The far wall is... odd. It looks like it’s been cracked into a hundred pieces, reconstructed, and then all the cracks filled in with ice. The whole thing sparkles in the light of Gloria’s flaming sword. There’s also a door, leading into a corridor which similarly sparkles as far down as you can see.

“Gloria, put that sword out, would you? I don’t want these walls melting and the place coming down on us.”

As the light of the sword dies down, Ajani flicks on a torch, and you realise that all the building’s lights are out. It’s not very comforting, especially as the torch light shows that the corridor is filled with the same light mist as the outside of the building was. You’re definitely feeling the cold, and you notice that Ajani and Gloria have buttoned up their coats.

“Is this normal? Ajani, have you seen this anywhere else the Winter King was operating?”

He shakes his head slowly. “This seems rather extreme, even for him.”

With nothing else to go on, you move slowly into the corridor, ears open, trying to keep your hands warm by sticking them under your arms.

There’s no sound for a while except your quiet breathing, each breath creating a small puff of mist in the still air. A few small rooms branch off the corridor, mostly empty. One contains a metal examining table, the kind you see in TV shows about autopsies, but there’s no body on it. Everything seems to be covered in a thin layer of ice.

At the far end of the corridor is a wooden door, again overlaid with ice. You don’t want to put your ear to the door with that much ice on it, but you can’t hear anything from beyond but the crackling sound of more ice. As slowly as you can, you nudge the door, trying not to push it open too far.

>>28702195You’ve got the door open a crack, but you can’t see much. The room beyond looks to be quite large, and you can see a few crates, and what’s presumably one of the corrugated side walls of the warehouse. The crackling sound of forming ice is getting louder, and you think you can make out someone talking, although you can’t hear the words. Or you’re not sure what the words are, at least.

The voice is familiar, you think, but you can't place it immediately. What do you want to do?

[]Keep listening carefully. See if you can make anything else out.[]This room is pretty big, and it looks like it's quite dark in there too. Turn off your torch, open the door a bit more and see if you can sneak in and get a better look.[]You've found out enough for one day. Get out now and come back in the daytime.[]See if you can invoke some of your magic to improve your ability to perceive what's going on.[]Other

>>28702251[ x ]Keep listening carefully. See if you can make anything else out.I want to try our magic too (humming would help) but there is always the risk of someone we dont want to be found by realizing we used magic. So dont use any magic and be quiet.

>>28702251[x]Keep listening carefully. See if you can make anything else out.Magic can be detected. Better to ask the Man if he recognized the voice, and if we're deep enough in the warehouse for him to figure out the threat type.

Holy... There is so much lore about this thing on tvtropes wiki. There is core info, then there is a list with bunch of like settings, and they all have explanation and a bunch of info from anime, manga, films and other things. What the hell with this all this fluff?

>>28702731((I kinda hoped someone would notice the "hollyhock" reference. Or the 'beauty and love' bit - the characterisation of the philosophy of Hell in Nobilis 3rd Edition is absolutely my favourite part of the setting. The Man's speech in thread 36 is the first time you might theoretically have put things together, if you were absolutely obsessed with Nobilis and your mind immediately went to the Excrucians and the Dead Zone of Libya, but like I said at the time, good luck. As far as things go... well, as you'll see in a little while, you're more or less right on schedule. ))

>>28702654You hum quietly, under your breath. Ajani starts to ask you what you’re doing, but you hold out a hand to shush him as the world starts to blur around you. The door in front of you seems almost irrelevant in comparison to the voices coming from beyond it. Two people are talking - a woman whose voice is definitely familiar, and a man you don’t know, speaking in gruff but friendly Cockney tones.

“You sure about this?” the man asks. “This don’t exactly seem like the clearest of plans - I mean, I get what you’re aiming for and all, but ain’t there easier ways to go about it?”

“Perhaps,” the woman replies. “But this is the best way. We have a duty, after all. Ah, but hush now. I think we have an audience. Are we ready to begin?”

The man chuckles. “Ain’t no problem with that. Still seems messy, though. Fire and ice and all.”

“I said hush, Coriander Hasp. This is a moment of beauty.”

There is suddenly a new voice, or a voice that’s changed. It’s still a woman speaking, but the voice that’s speaking is suddenly completely honest and clean. It rings out like the tones of a church bell, like the words of a prophet. There is nothing in the world like it, nothing so pure and sacred. To interrupt it or ignore it seems like sacrilege, like the desecration of an alter, the destruction of a masterpiece.

>>28703060“These words will ring out through all walls, all barriers. All in this town will hear the truth of things.”

There’s an echo around her words that seems to build and build, and the walls around you are starting to slowly shake.

“Once, there was beauty. All the things that now make up Creation were beautiful and whole. But they were stolen away from us, they were caged away, and they were told so many lies. They were told to be ashamed of their beauty, to fear their beauty, to hide it away underneath this strange tissue of lies.”

You hear a mumbling behind you. Without even looking, you reach back and slap your hand over Ajani’s mouth. He’s trying to repeat what the woman is saying, and you know instantly, instinctively, that these things should not be repeated. It seems so easy, like they could tumble forth from your lips as soon as you open your mouth, like the words are waiting on your tongue for you to speak. Gloria moves up to stand next to you, staring at the door. Her hand is clamped firmly over her own mouth, and she glances at you, then at the door, her eyes hard and cold.

“We are here to teach you how to strip away those lies, how to be proud of your beauty, how to understand the wonderful, amazing thing you could be, if you only believed in yourselves. We love you, and we want to help you, to make you better. You hurt yourselves every day, in so many strange, limited ways. But it’s all right. We care about you anyway. We still want to help you.”

“I am Iolithae Septimian. We are the Excrucians. Listen to us and be saved.”What do you want to do?

>>28703117Grab Ajani and Gloria and get away as fast as possible. Curse the Man for telling us to stay away from them and then sending us to their lap.Though its not really his fault, these people(?) are moving an we are bound to cross paths with them but it helps to blame and curse someone, and the man does deserve it to be honest.

>>28703897((Quick note: now that I don't need to dance around the Nobilis thing I am able to answer way more questions about the world, Chris's powers, etc. Ask below and I'll try to answer. In the morning, though. ))